MYOB Threatens Legals Action Against KashFlow
Tuesday, 26th February 2008 - For Immediate Release
MYOB, a public company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, are threatening legal action against UK accounting software company, KashFlow, over content on the KashFlow website.Press Room
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Chairman:
The Rt Hon Lord Young of Graffham
Founder & CEO:
Duane Jackson
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Duane Jackson, Managing Director of KashFlow is today speaking out about what he considers to be under-hand marketing tactics and threatening legal tactics by its much larger competitor and rival Mind Your Own Business (MYOB).
As many companies do, KashFlow has a comparison chart on its website that shows how its software compares against its key rivals such as Sage and MYOB.
Wayne Schmidt, the UK and Europe General Manager of MYOB took time out of his schedule to personally demand, via an email to KashFlow’s support team, that a number of amendments be made to the comparison chart to reflect MYOB product changes within a 3-day schedule. In addition to this MYOB wanted KashFlow to add the details of another product that they had.
Due to KashFlows rigorous web site security process only a Technical Manager is able to make such amendments, so MYOB were advised that it would be done as soon as practicable, in line with comparison chart advertising guidelines.
Mr Schmidt immediately responded threatening legal action unless the amendments were made within 3 business days.
KashFlow immediately sought advice and found that they had nothing wrong as the information clearly states that it was correct at the time when it was written at the end of last year.
Further investigation by KashFlow also revealed that MYOB was carrying out an under-hand and frowned upon online marketing tactic by placing adverts on search engines that would specifically appear when a potential customer typed the word KashFlow into the search box.
Duane Jackson, Managing Director of KashFlow said,
“Whilst they’re absolutely right that we should be showing the latest prices – to insist that we update our site within 3 days of them demanding is ridiculous.”
“MYOB contacted us last year and asked us to update the pricing. We managed to do it pretty quickly as we were in the process of putting together an update for that page anyway. I guess the promptness of our response then was what made them believe they could get heavy handed and demanding with us this time.”
“We’ve been aware that MYOB are keeping a close eye on us. From our logs we know they check our site regularly and have spotted that they advertise against our name on Google”.
He continued, “I understand why MYOB feel threatened – the new breed of “software as a service” (SaaS) companies like ours are having a big impact on the sales of old-style companies like theirs. There have been a number of other companies also launching very good SaaS products in recent months. Rather than throwing their weight around, MYOB should be looking at how they can also provide a service that the public are demanding”.
“We’ve had a lot of contact from other competitors recently. The others have always been friendly with us, so I was a bit surprised at the aggressive and demanding tone of the emails from MYOB”.
KashFlow now intends to remove MYOB entirely from its comparison chart when it updates the web page during a planned update over the next few weeks.
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